


For You, I'll Fight

by viajeramyra



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Berlermo fandom deserves good things, Berlermo happy ending, Berlin is alive, Blood and Torture, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fist Fights, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Pain, What-If, hopeful wishing for the new season, la casa de papel p4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:40:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23047144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viajeramyra/pseuds/viajeramyra
Summary: The heist has gone to hell. Gandia is free and his biggest vendetta is against Palermo.All hope is lost, or maybe not.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa & Palermo | Martín, Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Palermo | Martín
Comments: 9
Kudos: 193





	For You, I'll Fight

It had proved impossible to track Gandia. They had become entangled in his mouse trap, one right after the other. Martín breathed heavily, hidden in a dark corner trying to regain his sense of self-control. It was of little use, but he was the leader and he had to try. Under his breath, he cursed Denver for not letting him murder the man when he had the chance. Good will with the hostages be damned, at least he could’ve kept his team safe.

Nairobi was still unconscious from her surgery, somewhere between sleeping to regain her energy and still running the risk of dying. Helsinki had almost been hanged, and luck just happened to allow Mónica to find him at the right time. Denver and Rio had been rendered useless, lucky to escape the elevator blowing up with their lives. Tokyo was missing, and he simply had to hold up hope she was still alive. He had ordered everyone not to split up, to stick together with at least one other person. It was the only thing that offered them a fighting chance.

Bogotá, Mónica, and Helsinki kept a careful watch over Denver, Rio, and Nairobi. Tokyo had taken off on her own after Rio had been discovered, several bones broken and multiple cuts covering him in blood. He had followed her, as quickly as he could, but was still unable to keep up.

Communication with the outside had been cut off, and he tried to remain optimistic that Sergio could still get them out of there. But, Sergio had never been one to remain calm under pressure, his mind too easily sent racing. He tried to control it, tried to shift his brain into the Professor persona, but that didn’t always work. This time, Martín couldn’t fault him as much. He knew what it was like to lose the love of your life, to be left alone in the world with a giant hole in your heart you could never fill.

If only Andrés were here now. He was always the most effective leader, his ability to tune out to emotions and distractions his strongest point. Martín loved and admired him for it. His memories of Andrés’ strength had gotten him through so far, but they weren’t going to be enough for much longer. 

The walls were crumbling like paper all around him. Andrés had given his life under similar circumstances, and Martín wasn’t afraid of death. 

But, Andrés hadn’t given his life up for nothing. He had saved everyone else, apart from those who had died before him, in his final act. Martín couldn’t afford to lay down his life until the timing was just right.

He stepped out into the light of the room, slowly trying to take in every inch of his surroundings. His hands were secure around his weapon, ready to go if the moment arose. This was a war, and he was a willing soldier—inexperienced, but disciplined.

“Sudaca,” the smug voice rang in the air, making Martín turn on his heel. The room was still vacant, but he knew Gandia had to be close. 

The sound of boots clicking on the ground followed his voice, still far enough away to give Martín a chance to take cover, give him some element of surprise.

“Come out you rat. Or do you just let all your people die for you?”

The second taunt made his blood boil, but he tried to maintain his composure. He wouldn’t have a leg in this fight if he didn’t stay in control of his emotions. Gandia was a trained assassin. He’d gathered enough weapons to be a serious threat. His experience was an advantage point against Martín.

Instead of responding, he slowly moved to crouch on the far side of a bookshelf in the room. He could see just enough to know when Gandia entered the room, his back pressed firm against the wall. He would get but one shot, and he had to be prepared to take it.

It was him, or it was Gandia, and Martín wasn’t about to go down just yet. 

He could see the tips of Gandia’s boots as he walked into the room. Martín inhaled sharply, before he sprung out from his hiding spot, gun drawn, his finger pulling back the trigger.

He had just enough time to move his gun to point up into the air.

Firmly pressed in front of Gandia was no other than Tokyo, his gun pressed to her forehead. He admired how she continued to struggle, but Gandia’s grip was stronger. 

He smirked at Martín, but didn’t move his gun. “We can solve this like men, little women do not need to get hurt in the process.”

Tokyo snarled something about taking on Gandia herself, and Martín chuckled at her tenacity.

“Or I could just shoot you in the head, hijo de puta.” He lowered the barrel of his gun to line it perfectly with Gandia’s forehead.

“Coward,” Gandia replied, looking from Martín’s gun to his own, still glued to Tokyo’s temple. “You know I could kill her, before your bullet hits me. Are you really so afraid to put your weapon down?”

The challenge was one Martín knew better than to take. But, he knew he wasn’t going to get much of a choice. Tokyo could hold her own in most cases, but she could live to fight another day. He had angered Gandia more than he needed to during their confrontation earlier, and it was his actions that he had to pay for.

Martín slowly walked over backwards to one of the chairs in the room, never taking his eyes off Gandia and Tokyo. He placed his gun’s safety back on, a risky move if he needed it, but lowering the opportunity for Gandia to cheat and use it against him. As Martín laid down his weapon, Gandia started to loosen his grip on his hostage. One swift knock to Tokyo’s temple was all it took to make her fall to the ground. There was no telling how much time they would have until she regained consciousness. 

Gandia discarded his gun, keeping it out of immediate arms length from Tokyo. He took a step forward as he said, “I’m going to kill you, faggot. Send you to the depths of hell where you belong. Just like the special ops team did with Fonollosa.”    
  
Martín screamed, full of rage, as he rushed at Gandia. The mention of Andrés escaping his opponent’s lips was more than he could take. How dare anyone talk about Andrés’ sacrifice like that? It was heroic and brave, everything Martín had always admired in the love of his life. 

His fist swung wide, blocked easily by Gandia’s arm. The two men locked eyes, and at that moment, Martín knew he had already messed up. He shouldn’t have reacted so boldly to those particular words. Gandia’s lips curled up in a twisted smirk, exposing his top teeth. He knew another way to get into Martín’s head, one that Martín knew he wouldn’t so easily be able to block out. 

“Ah, so you  _ knew _ him, sudaca? And you still chose to come in here, knowing what we are capable of?” He chuckled, as he took his right elbow to Martín’s stomach. “You criminals disgust me. You have no honor.” 

Martín tried not to double over from the force of the blow, his heartbeat pounding in his head as he tried to block out the words that kept coming. He took the moment to return his own blow to Gandia, knocking him hard across the face with his left fist. The other man seemed unphased, as the two continued to knock blow-for-blow. 

Time seemed to pass in flashes. Martín couldn’t say how long they had been fighting, but it felt like they had been going for years. He had felt his head start to feel light a few blows ago, but he still kept trying to deliver some of his own. He stumbled backwards a few steps, enough to look up at Gandia and see the other man had a trail of blood dripping down from his lips. Still, something in his eyes made Martín feel sick. Gandia had no intent of letting him out of this fight alive. 

No one else would be coming to look for him, and Tokyo had yet to stir from her spot on the floor. He could try to convince himself to keep holding out for her to wake up, or he could succumb to defeat and get the pain over with faster. He forced himself to stand up straight, lazily wiping a mixture of sweat and blood off his forehead with the back of his hand. 

“Is that all you’ve got? I expected better from you,” he challenged, laughing loudly. His body continued to sway as if it were a leaf in the wind, but he managed to stand upright. 

Gandia rolled his eyes, remaining still as he watched Martín trying to regain his strength. His eyes flashed, something dark and sinister reflected in them. “Did you love him? Fonollosa.” Gandia’s tone seemed to suggest that he already knew the answer to the question. “At least he got them out alive. I imagine he’d be disappointed in you.” 

The words weren’t anything Martín hadn’t already felt since the heist had started to go to hell. Still, the single tear managed to form in his eye, a combination of the fiery pains he felt and the weight of hearing the words spoken aloud. “Honor,” he said with a shrug, as he braced himself once more to throw himself back into the ringer once more. “Andrés had principles. He was a good man.”    
  
“He was a criminal, and he was gunned down like the garbage he was. I saw the papers after he died,” he smirked, as he took a running blow to Martín’s knees. 

In attempting to dodge it, Martín managed to trip both of them. Martín’s back crashed onto the floor, the force sending him spinning just a little further away from where Gandia had fallen on his head. He looked up, the agony overwhelming. He wasn’t sure how it was possible, but his vision was blurrier than the damage from the glass. He heard Gandia’s grunt from the other side of the room as he tried to push himself back up off the floor. 

Martín knew that was going to be his end. He stayed on his back, ready to surrender. There simply wasn’t any energy left in his body for the fight, and Gandia seemed to be a never ending powerhouse. 

His vision slowly came back to him, in just enough time to see Gandia bending over him. The other man’s fist tightened around the collar of his shirt. His right hand pulled back, punching him square in the nose. 

A few more blows, and it would all be over. They both knew it. The more Gandia dragged it out, the more enjoyable it would be for him. Martín wondered briefly what that said about the  _ good guys.  _ They had been washed over with guilt about the majority of people they had briefly hurt--either physically or emotionally. But, Gandia derived an unnatural amount of pleasure from what he was doing. 

Martín closed his eyes, trying to think of his best memories. Nights spent at the monastery, planning what should’ve been their crowning glory. Trips down further south in Italy, sat a little too closely together to be just friends, as the warm sea breeze twirled around them. Beautiful colors painting the sky, but still not holding a candle to Andrés. ‘ _ We’ll be together soon,’  _ he thought, as he felt his body start to fade. 

_ BANG.  _

The flashes of pain seemed to come to a thundering halt after the noise broke the stillness of the air. Martín wondered if this was what dying was like, as his body slumped back onto the floor. He couldn’t recognize most of his surroundings, and his pain receptors seemed to be slowly down. He let out an agonizing moan, followed by a desperate whimper. 

But, death did not seem to come. Or, his idea of what death would be like was completely wrong, at the very least. 

Instead, he felt his body being gently lifted, as if he were being carefully cradled in someone’s arms. The arms around him were long, strong but lean. He felt two fingers gently trying to lift open his eyelids. 

And the buzzing sounds he heard had to be words, he couldn’t imagine what else they could be. He wanted to laugh at the fleeting thought that it could be the arms of an angel, coming to take him away. He wasn’t religious enough to believe in that sort of thing, and he had lived life in a way that disagreed with the philosophy of most churches. 

“Martín. Martín.  _ Martín _ ,” the voice seemed to become clearer, stronger and almost pleading in his mind. It was like a siren, something warm and familiar that he wanted to drown in. Being beat senseless, or dead, he was certain it couldn’t be who he thought it was.    
  
“Am I dead,” he murmured, each breath labored and heavy. He felt like his chest was being crushed by every single one of them. 

_ Not  _ dead, then. He was certain there wouldn’t be this much pain if he were. 

“Of course not, Martín, don’t be dramatic,” the voice replied, seeming to gently stroke two fingers down the side of his head. 

He slowly forced his eyes open, forcing his vision to focus as best as he could. He could make out a loud cry, the shape of the other man’s head and the mop of slightly unruly black hair enough for him to know who he was looking at. “Dreaming then,” he cried, the tears running freely down his face. “Imagining things,” he whimpered once more. He wanted to close his eyes and make the image go away. It was too painful to be looking up at Andrés’ face, knowing it would fade back into reality and prove to be someone else. 

“Martín,” the voice said gently, but firm, “It’s me. I’m here,” he said. He pulled Martín tighter into his arms, seemily dabbing something soft against a wound on his temple. “Do you think so little of me that I would leave without saying goodbye to you?” 

“Andrés,” he said, softly as he reached his hand up to wrap around the other man’s wrist. “Andrés.  _ Andrés _ ,” he cried, harder. He tried to contain his sobs, his broken body recoiling as each one vibrated in his chest and up his throat. “Impossible.” 

Andrés’ trademark chuckle escaped his lips, before he managed to contain himself once more. His energy and attention focused on the worst of Martín’s injuries, but he knew they would have to move him somewhere he could tend to his wounds properly. “I’m sure that you can find some math that makes it probable,” he finally responded. His thumb gently caressed Martín’s bottom lip, his touch tender. 

It was almost enough to make Martín positive that he was dreaming. 

Until his eyes rolled more to the back of his head, his energy waning. It was only then that he saw Gandia, lying in a pool of red beneath him. 

\---

He slowly came back to his senses, in a room that didn’t match any he had seen in the Bank of Spain. He groaned, waves of pain rushing from his head and throughout the rest of his body. He slowly forced his hand up over his eyes, trying to block out the light. 

“Martín,” Sergio’s exhausted voice rang out. Martín felt his shoulders shrink, defeated. 

That made more sense that his imagination had run wild. 

“Sergio,” he groaned. “Where are we?” He asked. Whatever on him felt thin, and when he shifted his body ever slightly, he thought he could hear the sound of springs moving with him. 

“In hiding, Martín,” another voice replied. “Out of the Bank, and back on the run.” 

He felt his heart stop at that voice bouncing around the room. “ _ Andrés _ ,” he cried out, trying to force himself to sit up. “You’re  _ real.  _ You’re  _ here _ .” 

Andrés chuckled, coming to kneel next to Martín’s side on the cot. He gently ran his fingers through the tips of Martín’s hair. “I already told you I was,” he assured his friend. He smiled down gently at him. 

“I thought I was dreaming. I thought I’d  _ died _ .” He wanted to add that he wouldn’t have mind dying if it had lead to them being together in death once more. But, that didn’t seem necessary. 

“I thought you were going to die on me, too,” Andrés said, seemingly biting back anger. “I ran through the Bank, trying to find you when you weren’t with the others. I  _ killed  _ him, before he could kill you.” He kept stroking his fingers through Martín’s hair. “You’ve been sleeping for weeks. I made sure nothing else could hurt you.” 

“Where, where are the others? Did they get out too?”    
  
Andrés simply nodded, his attention still focused on Martín. “It’s just the four of us here. You, me, Sergio, and la Inspectora. Seems the police aren’t as efficient as they’d like to be.”    
  
Martín laughed softly, not wanting this moment to end. He forced himself to sit up on the bed, slowly moving so that his legs were positioned on either side of Andrés. Gently, he raised his hands against the other man’s face. Two fingers rested, pointed on his temples, while the others folded to rest on Andrés’ cheeks. 

His Andrés looked as well groomed and put together as usual. His hair was combed back, a red velvet jacket dressing him up. Ever so chic, no matter the circumstances. He could only imagine that his own hair looked tousled from Andrés’ fingers threading it , and he was certain he wasn’t up to the dress code. 

Their eyes stayed locked on each other, the silence surrounding them in welcoming comfort. Until, “I love you,” escaped Andrés’ lips. 

“What?” Martín asked, taken back by the sudden declaration. He must’ve heard that wrong, surely. 

“I thought of you every day I was held captive,” Andrés continued, his hands resting on Martín ’s knees. “It got me through the worst of it, not that they seemed to be trying very hard to break my spirits. I missed you, Martín . I  _ love  _ you, mi amor. I should’ve realized years ago.” 

Martín smiled, his eyes glancing down at Andrés’ lips. Slowly, the two of them started to move closer to the other. Their foreheads rested against the other’s first, before Martín moved his lips against Andrés’. The kiss was soft, slow, and burning with the promise of years to come. Years spent making up for lost time. Years spent  _ together.  _ All he had ever wanted, could ever hope for, finally coming back to him.    
  
“I love you, Martín,” he breathed against his lips.

“I love you too, Andrés.” 

  
  



End file.
